TRENDING:

Month: January 2019

Authored by Edward Curtin via OffGuardian.com, As Martin Luther King’s birthday is celebrated with a national holiday, his death day disappears down the memory hole. Across the country – in response to the King Holiday and Service Act passed by Congress and signed by Bill Clinton in 1994 – people will be encouraged to make the day one of service. Such service does not include King’s commitment to protest a decadent system of racial and economic injustice or non-violently resist the U.S. warfare state that he called “the greatest purveyor of violence on earth.” Government sponsored service is cultural neo-liberalism at its finest, the promotion of individualism at the expense of a mass movement for radical institutional change. “Nothing in all the world is more dangerous,” warned Dr. King, “than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.” How true those words. For the government that honors Dr. King with a national holiday killed him. This is the suppressed truth behind the highly promoted day of service. It is what you are not supposed to know. It is what Thomas Merton, as quoted by James W. Douglass, called The Unspeakable: It is the void that contradicts everything that is spoken even before the words are said; the void that gets into the language of public and officials declarations at the very moment when they are pronounced, and makes them ring dead with the hollowness of...

Sen. Mark Warner (D., Va.) still has a lot to uncover in regards to the investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 election. “That is news to me. And that is big news,” exclaimed Warner, the ranking member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, about the revelation that then-candidate Donald Trump might have in negotiations with Russian officials on a possible Trump Tower in Moscow until October or November 2016. “It was news to us on the Senate Intelligence Committee as well,” Warner revealed when he was asked about Trump’s former campaign chairman Paul Manafort sharing polling data with a Ukrainian official with ties to Russia. Warner and his colleagues on the intelligence committee have investigated Russia’s interference in the 2016 election. They interviewed numerous witnesses, including Donald Trump Jr., the president’s eldest son. In July 2018, the committee released a report indicating agreement with the U.S. intelligence community’s assessment that Russia interfered to help Trump win. Since then, the committee’s investigation has been mostly dormant. This has not stopped Warner from appearing on cable news to share what he just learned from watching the news or to answer “I don’t know” to reporters’ questions. The post Inspector Warner, Ranking Member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Doesn’t Know appeared first on Washington Free...

At least 11 sailors have died after two ships caught fire while moving through the Kerch Strait separating Crimea from mainland Russia – the location of the latest escalation in tensions between Russia and Ukraine in November – after one of them was apparently rocked by an explosion the Russian Maritime Agency said. One vessel was “allegedly struck by a blast” RT reported, which caused the fire that then spilled over to another ship, an official with the Russian Maritime and River Transport Agency said. Clouds of black smoke could be seen billowing over a vessel engulfed by a blaze on YouTube footage, which shows the scene of the incident. Another ship can be seen floating nearby. The fire reportedly broke out as the two ships were transferring fuel from one to the other. According to RT, approximately three dozen sailors managed to escape the burning ships by jumping into the sea but at least 11 people died in the incident and 12 have so far been rescued from the sea. The crews of the affected ships included Turkish and Indian nationals, the emergency services said, adding that there were no Russian sailors. Turkey confirmed that 16 of its citizens were aboard the affected vessels. Emergency services said that between eight and ten ships have been sent to the rescue and are picking up the sailors. The explosion might...

Authored by Nick Routley via VisualCapitalist.com, The suits are pressed and the jets are gassed up, as global political and business leaders prepare to converge in Davos for the World Economic Forum. To prep the wide variety of world leaders attending the summit, the organization has just published its most recent edition of the Global Risks Report. The highly anticipated annual presentation puts the world’s most pressing issues into focus, giving a sense of what is top-of-mind for global decision-makers. Below are the top five risks highlighted in this year’s report. THE WORLD’S EVOLVING RISK LANDSCAPE The report looks at two specific ways of evaluating global risks: The likelihood of an event occurring The impact or severity of an event, should it occur And over recent years, it’s clear that the composition of these top threats has evolved. In 2009, the world was still reeling from the global financial crisis, so economic concerns were naturally at the forefront of discussions. Today, the most likely scenarios to play out in the near future involve extreme weather events and natural disasters. Also trending upward are cyber-security threats and concerns over the security of personal data. RISK PERCEPTION Each year, the Global Risks Perception Survey looks at which risks are viewed by global decision-makers as increasing in the coming year. Some clear themes emerge from the responses: A Breakdown in Geopolitical Cooperation From trade...

Senators Cory Booker (D, N.J.) and Bernie Sanders (I, Vt.) are spending the Martin Luther King Day holiday in South Carolina, the state that would hold the fourth caucus or primary in the 2020 presidential campaign. Both are assumed to be in the process of deciding to run for president, or have already decided but simply haven’t announced. In 2016, Sanders surprised rival Hillary Clinton and political watchers with his showing in the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary, but then got trounced in South Carolina by a 73-26 spread. “[South Carolina is] important because it’s the first state that these candidates will get an opportunity to vet their message with a population that reflects the heart of the Democratic Party, which is African-Americans and specifically African-American women,” former state Democratic chair Jamie Harrison was quoted as saying in Politico. If Sanders does launch a presidential run, most political observers and pundits agree it would be absolutely essential for him to perform better in the state next year. “Several South Carolina Democrats said they’ve taken calls from Booker and Harris in recent weeks, and some have met with the potential candidates during recent stops to the state,” the Politico report noted. “Booker will hold private meetings with local activists and leaders again on Monday.” Earlier on Monday, California Senator Kamala Harris announced her presidential candidacy on ABC’s “Good...